The Black Dragon is the twelfth-century chronicle of the adventures of James Dunreith, Duke of Ca'rynth, a Scots border lord. Exiled by his king, Henry II, grandson of William the Conqueror, James has traveled the known world as crusader and adventurer. Henry's death brings him home to his beloved land, where the boundaries between mortal and faery grow thin. Claremont and Bolton's popular tale portrays an England that abounds with the magical creatures, both divine and grotesque, that inhabited the medieval mind.
Though The Black Dragon is a fantasy story, it is firmly rooted in historical fact. Set in England in A. D. 1193, James Dunreith's tale is populated by real historical figures. England's king, Richard the Lion-Hearted, is on a crusade in the Holy Land, and his mother, Eleanor of Aquitane, acts as regent. Like the chivalric tales of King Arthur and his knights so loved by Eleanor and her court, this is not the story of England as it perhaps was, but how it might have been.
"I'm delighted to be able to get this story back into print," said Black Dragon writer and co-creator Chris Claremont. "An entire generation of comics fans has come of age since these pages were first released."
The Black Dragon, along with its sequel Dragon Moon, has garnered acclaim from the worlds of science fiction and fantasy. Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer Anne McCaffrey, author of The Dragonriders of Pern series, supplies the introduction to the The Black Dragon collection.
The Black Dragon is a 184-page, black-and-white trade paperback graphic novel and will ship to comics shops and bookstores on April 9, 1996.